Or rather, one of the things I sometimes do in my spare time.
So, once upon a time, I saw a cool bracelet design on a craft book in Michael's or one of those. After flipping through, I decided it was worth my money, internet access being somewhat sketchy at the time. I'd had friends who took up chainmail with the intent of making chain shirts for Ren Fair. Never got into it myself, but this bracelet interested me. Picked up some aluminum & steel wire & some metal rods. Found steel too difficult to coil by hand, but aluminun worked ok. Snip cut a whole
ton of rings in various diameters of 0.0455" diameter wire & went to work.
This is the bracelet that got me started. A variation of a weave called Conundrum II. 3/16" & 5/16" inner diameter rings. When I first made this, the smaller rings were placed somewhat differently, making it less stable & causing the large rings to jump to places they shouldn't. Drove me crazy until I restructured it.
This was my second project. 3/16" inner diameter rings. A pattern dubbed Byz Bees to Butterflies, it was a fun, easy weave that led me to an easy method for Byzantine units.
So, I made myself a three chain Byzantine bracelet from 3/16" id rings.
One of my mom's friends saw pictures & wanted a row added, so I made a four chain bracelet. Ended up making another for my mom.
Shortly before that, I ran into the M.A.I.L. forums & the massive weave library. There I discovered Persian Dragonscale. This one is 1/4" id rings.
A slight tweak to the way you stitch it up & you get Dragonback instead. 1/4" id rings again.
Made this one both to practice Persian & because crosses sell. This one never did. A combination of 3/16" & 1/4" id rings.
This was made for a "one ring size" contest on the M.A.I.L. forums. Essentially a double-wide Alligatorback. I don't think I ever entered it. All 3/16" id rings. While it may look ok, this one was a huge disappointment. The center area didn't have enough stability no matter how much I tried to compensate with the bars at the end.
There was no point in having an unwearable piece, so I partially deconstructed the double-wide Alligatorback & rebuilt it into two chains. This was the last thing I did before taking a break, during which I decided that if I was going to do chainmail again, it would have to be stainless & not snip cut. Aluminum may be easy to work with, but of course it comes at the cost of end product durability.
When I got back to it recently, my early experience with coiling steel told me making my own rings would not be worth it. I don't have a proper winding rig & I don't have the patience nor the time to do saw cutting & deburring. Fortunately, I know a supplier or few who do for a decent price.
Picking up where I left off, I rebuilt the Alligatorback in 3/16" id. stainless. As simple as it is, this is one of my favorite weaves, both to make & the finished product.
But not before I remade my mom's bracelet in stainess. I've had to patch up the aluminum one a few times after some rough encounters with something or other. In one case the clasp almost ripped free after catching on something. This one is noticeably heavier, but it should fare better in the long run.
And that's where I am now. I'm not sure what my next project will be, but my sister keeps pestering me for not making her something, so it may be that, when she figures out what it is she wants.
